According to this website, some automobile manufacturers provide some sort of child safety seats or booster seats built into their vehicles.
For the rest of us, we use booster and saftey seats that can be secured to a vechile; however, once you’ve had an accident, conventional wisdom states you should no longer use the car seat, and IIRC, some states require you to render the carseat unusable by others (destroy it).
So, after an accident in a vehicle with an integrated safety seat … what happens? Is there a higher level of check/replacement of those parts than on the rest of the saftey equipment of the car, to the level of a removable safety seat, such as complete change out?
The “conventional wisdom” of replacing child restraint systems after an accident is based on statements made by the makers of the seats. Of course, it is in their best interest to sell as many seats as possible, even if this means the consumer will replace a perfectly good item. In the majority of cases, if there is no obvious damage to the seat, there is no compromise of safety. They have basically “spooked” everybody with such assertions, needlessly most of the time.
As a general rule, Child Restraint Systems are very durable–as well they should be. But as for integrated systems, you would need to check the manufacturer’s crash results. if this data is not available (und thus non-existent or withheld from public view), would you want to use their system anyway?
I agree with your sentiment, but the statement that no obvious damage = safe is simply incorrect - it is quite possible for materials to be damaged or stressed in ways that would render them unsafe, but for such damage to be entirely undetectable by human eye, particularly an untrained one.
That is the concern that causes me to render seats that have been in accidents useless and replace them … $100 bucks or evern $200 bucks is nothing compared to the cost of the life of my child (though decent seats sell for less than that).
I’m just thinking about shareable resources, such as cars, and it occured to me that I would be a bad candidate for a car-share system because of my need to be able to drop off and pick up my child without fighting a carseat in and out of the car more than once in a blue moon when I need to wash the seat cover or clean out the car.
But if there were a car-share system that had built-in carseats, or something, it might make this idea a little more feasible.
Basically, right now, me, the kid, and the hub get into one car in the morning. Drop the kid off five minutes from the house, drop me off at work an hour later. During the week we leave our ‘spare’ car at work so I can run errands at lunch (or work late) if I need to.
When we move, he’ll be working in such a way as to make commuting not possible, and we’ll be alternating picking up and dropping off the kid, but will both need to have carseats in case we need to pick the kid up.
Further complicating this is that our choice of daycare is within five minutes of my office or five minutes of home. So is the train.
If there were a car share system, I could drop the kid off, go to the train station, go to work. Pick up a shuttle or car share there. If I need to get the kid, I could take a car share back to the house/daycare, or just pick up the train and then a carshare when I get there.
The hub could just drive a regular car and car seat in case he has kid duty (his work would not be train-friendly).\
Don’t get me wrong, good sir. Irrespective of the ICBC report I would consider anyone who continued to use a visibly damaged CRS, or even one that ‘performed under load’ in a major accident, a bad person. But it IS interesting that even though visibly damaged the seats continued to perform as designed in the ICBC tests.
You and Mynn are right of course–what’s another $200? Or hell, another $50 for a cheap one that still meets minimum standards?
I was just being a cynical jerk about the manufacturers crying wolf when: a) there is no evidence to support their danger claim and b) evidence to the contrary exists.
Pity the poor seat maker. If he tells you that it is OK to reuse a seat after an accident, or if they make no statement on the subject, picture what happens. Some idiot will take a seat that is in 2 pieces from the most severe accident known to man and reuse the damn thing. When their child is injured because the child seat wasn’t up to the second accident, the maker gets sued, because" they never told me I had to replace it."
If on the other hand the seat maker suggests replacement after an accident (the only way they can cover their ass) then they are money-grubbing pigs for trying to sell more seats.
I never had to replace a car seat, but when my daughter did a face plant into a brick wall I was happy as could be to have to buy a new bike helmet. The reason I was so happy was the only injury she sustained was a cut lip. W/O the helmet she could have died, or been in a coma. New bike helmet $30, I am guessing that is way less than a funeral.
The link you gave shows two integrated safety seats, both of the booster type used with older children. These seats are very helpful for children that are too big for a child seat, but the shoulder part of the belt tends to run across their nose instead of across their shoulder. The integrated booster cushion raises the child up. This has to effects, first it makes the lap portion of the belt ride on the child?s hips (strongest part of the child) and secondly, it makes the shoulder portion of the belt ride on the shoulder.
The seats shown in the link are all Volvo car items. To the best of my knowledge, there is no replacement suggestion or requirement for this type of integrated seat in a Volvo since it will not be subjected to any greater load then any other seat in the car in an accident. The seat is not restraining anything it is just a booster.
There are two additional items that I should mention. There is a latch gizmo that secures the booster portion of the seat into that position. If that latch were to be damaged in an accident, it would of course have to be repaired or replaced.
The last item is very important for anyone in an accident. If a seat belt was worn and the car was in an accident, that seat belt should be replaced. A seat belt stops you by stretching the nylon fibers in the webbing. After the accident the fiber do not go back to their original size and shape, they are longer, skinnier, weaker, and some may be broken. Seat belts are strictly a one-accident item. If you ever see a seat belt that looks and feels kinda fuzzy or furry, and looks kinda curly when you look at the edge, then you are looking at a seat belt that was damaged in an accident, and needs to be replaced.
